I Thought CNN Was Taking a Courageous Stand Against White House lies. I Was Mistaken.
(COMMON DREAMS) Bill Moyers, February 10, 2017 — Well, I certainly got that one wrong.
Based on news reports, and after two phone calls to check them out, on Tuesday I wrote a column saluting Jake Tapper and CNN for saying, “No!” to Kellyanne Conway when the White House offered her up as a guest for Tapper’s Sunday program. Except for Fox and Breitbart, I said, no news organization had been more useful to Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy than CNN, but now it appeared they were fed up with serving as a springboard for the lies tossed around like grenades by Trump’s propaganda minions — most notably Ms. Conway, the president’s senior adviser who doubles, I pointed out (with apologies to my late Baptist deacon father for the language) as the administration’s official Queen of Bullshit.
Standing up to her took some guts from Tapper and his network, given the fear and loathing Trump directs at journalists who dare exert some First Amendment independence, and I said so in the column:
“So yes — let’s salute CNN for this one small step of resistance — for refusing to give Kellyanne Conway a forum to push the lie a little further. Perhaps I am making too much of one incident, but cheers nonetheless to Jake Tapper… Maybe, now, someone else will follow, another domino will fall, and another and another — until we in the press have collectively reclaimed our courage and independence from complicity with the state.”